I hope you are having a nice holiday weekend. Today is the fourth Monday, so we’ll get a little farther along in our Vintage Christmas quilt along. The next two blocks are the Skate and the Candy Canes. If you’ve missed the previous posts, just click on Vintage Christmas Quilt Along on the sidebar to see them all.
I cut all the bits and labeled them with sticky notes. Putting a note over the 6-inch cutting instructions kept me on the right track for size.
I sewed the first piece and immediately had to take it back out. The background piece is not square and I didn’t pay close enough attention.
The only spot it tells you which corner to sew the square onto is on the picture. Note that the square goes on the lower right when the rectangle is oriented with the longer side running top to bottom.
Continuing to assemble, one step at a time.
Bigger pieces mean this one goes together quickly.
All done. I’ll add the strings for the boot laces later.
On to the next block, cut and label. One thing on this block, the book shows a light green background, and I didn’t do that. I wasn’t going to have green on any other block, and I thought it would stand out of the final project too much.
This one is simple with half square triangles forming the stripes.
As I was sewing, I noticed the white stripes don’t really show well, they blend into the background.
I plan to solve this by outlining the candy canes with a dark thread when I get to doing the handwork on the other blocks.
Here are the next two blocks finished, with only the handwork remaining.
We have 10 blocks done, just two more to go.
Here are the tips for the Vintage Christmas Quilt Along, all together and I’ll add more as each month’s sewing is posted. I’ll also be adding your tips, too, so leave yours in the comments.
- Read the entire block pattern carefully before beginning sewing.
- As you cut your pieces out, label them with the letter associated.
- Use a fine line pencil to mark your lines on tiny squares.
- Re-read each step, noting the number of elements to make. When she says make ‘a’ unit, she really means only one.
- Lay out the pieces for each step so you can chain sew where possible.
- Use your quarter-inch foot where possible for accuracy, change to a straight stitch foot for diagonal lines on squares.
- Sew slightly to the outside of diagonal lines.
- Press your units with a Wool Press Mat, pressing toward the outside edges.
- Press diagonal squares folding the excess behind flat to make the sides come out straight.
- Be sure to square up your units as you go.
- Begin sewing in the center of a base piece when adding a square to flip.
- Using just a dab of glue in the corners you cut off will help keep the edges lined up. (Thanks, Elaine!)
- Use a folded Post-It note to cover the chart you aren’t using to reduce cutting errors. (Thanks, Susan!)
Share your progress on our Facebook group, Friends of From My Carolina Home. How are you doing with your blocks? Are you sewing along, or working on other projects?
From My Carolina Home 
This is darling. I love the fabrics you have chosen. Looks like and old-fahioned Christmas!
Such a lovely collection of Christmas blocks….. it will be a very fun sampler quilt!
Blueprint shutting down is so unfair. I hope we can get our classes but I don’t hold out much hope. I have no business experience but even I could see their platform wasn’t going to work. I have close to 50 classes and even more patterns.
Love your Christmas blocks. I am going to have to get that book and try one myself. Currently, I am working on my guild panel challenge project and a BOM from Sarah Vedeler that is an embroidered quilt. It’s all done in the hoop, but I am planning on quilting mine on my longarm. These are large blocks, either 18 or 24 inches. I’m doing the 18 inch. My test block came out looking pretty good so I am proceeding with these gorgeous houses! I also signed up for another BOM from Stitchin’ Heaven and have received two months blocks that are just sitting there! I’ll get to them eventually!
I thank you for your attention to Christmas, I have to admit sewing on other things, Procrastinating as usual, thinking there it so much time to Christmas. OH no, tell me it is not tomorrow. I finished quilt 24 since Jan. on Sat. So I really have not been doing nothing.
Looking forward to working on those 2 blocks this week. I have these two blocks cut out, tagged and bagged so I would be ready to sew. Good points on that background fabric. I don’t remember what background I cut for those, it will be a surprise when I get the box out. (I’m using 3 backgrounds and by doing all the cutting at one time, I was able to balance out the colors in the blocks, and I hope I did that with the backgrounds.)
I have my TWIST (King size) assembled, and am putting on a narrow 2″ border. One side is done, will get the other 3 sides of it on today, then will wait for your border ideas on Friday.
I can’t say I’m surprised by NBC/Universal dumping Bluprint. They did not maintain the original focus of the site and I’ve never really believed the classes would be owned forever. It is a disheartening experience for everyone involved. They abandoned their pattern makers last year and I would guess the same thing will happen to those of us who have “forever” classes.
Love the skate! I started a Shoe Quilt many years ago with a pattern from Susan Druding and have added some as I find them. This will be a nice addition. It was supposed to be a trendy quilt – now it’s looking like a historical reminiscence of high top boots, sneakers, sandals, etc. Love Lori’s side notes in the book. There’s a little pixie in her! I did a table runner of 21 of the light pattern from her book and it looks so cute and was so easy.
Thanks for all the info and updates.
Thank you for the heads up about Bluprint! DH is trying to figure out a way to download the videos I have purchased. I saved what patterns I could.
Your blocks are looking beautiful!